It is a sort of natural cooperative store, everypolype helping the whole, at the same time as it helps itself.
In the case of the red coral, the hard skeleton belongs to the interior of the stem and branches only; but in the commoner white corals, each polype has a complete skeleton of its own.
There is reason to believe that such masses as these take a long time to form, and hence that the age a polype tree, or polype turf, may attain, may be considerable.
Further, there would be no reason for not extending what is true of the polype to all monads, the most imperfect of all creatures, and ultimately to the plants, which are also alive, etc.
If the truncated portions of a polype be placed end to end, and gently pushed together, they will unite into a single one.
If we slit a polype longitudinally through the head to the middle of the body, we shall have one formed with two heads; and by again slitting these in the same manner, we may form one with as many heads as we please.
When full, the polype contracts itself, hangs down as in a kind of stupor, but extends again in proportion as the food is digested, and the excrementitious part is discharged.
The polype (See Hydra) was the first instance we had of this kind; but we had scarcely time to wonder at the discovery M.
When the mouths of both are thus joined together upon one common prey, the largest polype gapes and swallows his antagonist; but, what is more wonderful, the animal thus swallowed seems to be rather a gainer by the misfortune.
The remains of the animals on which the polype feeds are evacuated at the mouth the only opening in the body.
If an incision be made in the side of a hydra, a youngpolype soon developes itself; and if one of these creatures be divided, it quickly restores the lost portion of its structure.
Polype stem, upper part, one-and-a-half times the natural size.
A polype may give rise to Medusae, or a pluteus to an Echinoderm, but the Medusa and the Echinoderm give rise to eggs which produce polypes or glutei, and they are therefore only stages in the cycle of life of the species.
You must understand that all this skeleton has been formed in the interior of the body, to suit the branched body of the polype mass, and that it is as much its skeleton as our own bones are our skeleton.
In this next coral the creature which has formed the skeleton has divided itself as it grew, and consequently has formed a great expansion; but scattered all over this surface there were polype bodies like those I previously described.
And thus, although the polype itself may be a fixed creature unable to move about, it is able to spread its offspring over great areas.
So that you have the young polype floating about in this fashion, covered by its 'vibratile cilia', as these long filaments, which are capable of vibration are termed.
So long as the land remains stationary, so long as it does not descend so long will that reef be unable to get any further out, because the moment the polype embryos try to get below they die.
If I make a bud grow out here, and another on the opposite side, and each fashions itself into a new polype, the practical effect will be that before long you will see a single polype converted into a sort of tree or bush of polypes.
A little later, these pieces free themselves successively, and the sedate polype disappears in a company of sprightly young medusæ.
The medusa remains in its polypestate for some months.
Trembley led the way in the actual study from life of the Polype tribe, particularly the hydra.
When a polype is introduced by the tail into another body, the two unite and form one individual; and when a head is lopped off, it may safely be engrafted on the body of any other which may chance to want one.
If it should chance that a polype so turned had young in the act of budding, these are, of course, now within the stomach.
After forcibly keeping it for some time in this state, the two individuals at length united, and a polype was formed, distinguishable only by having twice the usual number of tentacles.
If a polype be slit from the summit to the middle, one will be formed having two heads, each of which will capture and swallow food.
It is a sort of natural co-operative store, everypolype helping the whole, at the same time as it helps itself.
Trembley showed that you could take a polype and cut it into two, or four, or many pieces, mutilating it in all directions, and the pieces would still grow up and reproduce completely the original form of the animal.
Finally, there are about ten polype-cells in each square inch; and thus there are or have been in this coral-mass, nearly a quarter of a million of polype inhabitants.
When the polype is in this state, I take it gently out of the water, without disturbing anything, and place it on the edge of my hand, which is simply moistened, so that it may not adhere too closely.
This is what Trembley says:--"I begin by giving a worm to the polype on which I wish to make an experiment, and when it is swallowed I begin operations.
I bring its thickest end to the hind end of the polype and push it, making it enter into its stomach, which is the more easily done as in that part it is empty and much enlarged.
When it reaches the worm, which holds the mouth open, it either pushes the worm or passes by its side, and at last comes out by the mouth, the polype being thus completely turned inside out.
On the development of the Hydroid Polypes, Clavatella and Stauridia; with remarks on the relation between the Polype and the Medusoid, and between the Polype and the Medusa.
This view of the nature of the post-embryonic metamorphosis is apparently that of Claparede and Salensky, and is supported by Claparede's statement that the formation of the first polype 'resembles to a hair' that of the subsequent buds.
Hatschek has made with reference to the dorsal organ the extremely plausible suggestion that it is a rudimentary bud, and that the hypoblastic sack it contains gives rise to the hypoblast of the young polype developed from the bud.
The first distinct rudiment of the polype appears as a white body, which gradually develops into the alimentary canal and lophophore.
The future polype itself appears to originate, in part at any rate, from the so-called dorsal organ[125].
The key to the nature of the two germinal layers is to be found in Huxley's comparison between them, and the two layers in the fresh-water polype and the sea-anemone.
We know experimentally that this is so in the case of the Protozoa, and of some very simple Metazoa, such as the freshwater Polype or Hydra, where there is no distinct nervous system.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "polype" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
